"A bird doesn't sing because he has an answer; he sings because he has a song."Joan Walsh Anglund

Some Mondays are more Monday than others, and this is just the quote I need for this day. Although it has been attributed to Maya Angelo rather publicly on the USPS stamp commemorating the late poet, civil rights advocate, and writer, it is in fact a quote from Joan Walsh Anglund in her book, A Cup of Sun. You can read about the misattribution here.

Song sparrow in a thorn tree...(filters are fun!)

So today, I hum, I sing, because I have a song. And this is the song of my heart, this day, every day. Even when it seems like there are no answers and I'm singing in a thorn tree...Would you care to join me?

Central Pennsylvanians have been reveling in a rare spate of warm days - a thermometer that says 60-something degrees, or even 70 as it did today, is not the usual February scene in the midstate area! (Even the sheep seem to like simply standing in the sun! Don't you think they've struck a nice emo band pose?) I know, the mild weather won't last. We've had some of our best/worst snowstorms in late February and early March. But does that need to temper my heartfelt enjoyment of this gift? I think not.

I am reminded of a quote that has deeply shaped my life in the fifteen years since I heard it from the mouth of a sanity-saving caseworker during some really bumpy days of foster parent angst: ​

Sometimes you have to be thankful for the little things…because that’s all there is.​

I’ve never forgotten her sobering challenge.

And of course, there are never just the little things –

-there are the huge things that we live in and take for granted every day until our view of them suddenly shimmers and we aren’t sure we’ll have them tomorrow: health,breath,family love,a heartbeat,mental clarity.

-there are the huge things that half the world scrabbles to find, which we assume to be our right:clean watera safe night of sleep for our children,nourishing, affordable food,a day of non-violence on a familial or national level,a warm shelter,a decent education.

So, without minimizing the wonder of being privilege to those truly big things, on this balmy February day, I want to give thanks for some of the wonder-full little things I've been noticing.

​1. Greenest green grass along the creek.

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​​2. Gossamer silk and rusted iron. (Or, horse hair and barbed wire.)

3. White dove in a little gray door.

​4. Creekful of stars.

5. Parhelion (aka sundog) over Stone Mountain

​6. Brown fields, freshly plowed.

7. And the smallest glory of the day...

​...so small, in fact, I nearly missed it, nearly missed them. I was trying to capture the sun’s glory across the shining patches of newly turned earth when a shimmering thread caught my eye. The sun’s low rays revealed the ethereal beauty of a shining strand of silk...no, thousands of strands of delicate spider web flung across the damp earth, crisscrossing the field and each other as far as I could see.

How had this happened?When had it happened?Farmer Neighbor and his six horses had probably finished the plowing only an hour or two before. Did he notice the shining threads? Or were my eyes the only ones that smiled while beholding this thinnest, loveliest treasure...

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Sometimes you have to be thankful for the little things…because that’s all there is. And really, that is enough.

Thank You, says my heart, heavenward.Thank You, thank You, thank You.

(And, look who's back. I heard them before I saw them on my late afternoon walk today, crying plaintively, "killdeer, killdeer," wheeling high, then circling in to land in the pasture.Two more reasons for a grateful heart...I'm gonna keep looking for the little things!Would you care to join me?)

Thoughts from Henry David Thoreau,1817-1862, on a brisk (ok, wildly windy!) February afternoon:

​"Live in each season as it passes:

Breathe the air,

Drink the drink,

Taste the fruit,

and resign yourself to the influences of each."

Thank you, Henry David Thoreau,for this 19th century reminder to live in the present moment, in the 21st century,in the middle of February,in the middle of the mid-Atlantic states,in the middle of winter. ​Thursday are for thankfulness. I'm grateful for this day of wind and flurries and ice...so much beauty, every single day.​Watch for it...​Right here.

On a recent morning when I stepped onto the back porch for mundane-moment task, I heard a bluebird. It wasn’t the first time in recent days; it seems they’re here to stay, and it is still mid-February.​ I could not see the pert head, cocked just a bit to one side, eye to the ground in search of…what? The tell-tale movement of a hapless insect? It’s hard to believe anything could be moving out there, frigid as its been, but then again, those bluebirds are eating something or they wouldn’t be hanging around. (Oh, God let it be a stinkbug…they seem to be endlessly available.)

When I heard that distinctive call, in the dimness of not-quite-dawn, garbage in hand, it delighted me. I didn’t have to see his brilliant blue shoulders or rosy breast to know it was "him!" ​​I would know that “tu-a-wee” anywhere, floating in like a butterfly, an afterthought, a grace note.

Yes. A grace note. And what did I need more than that?

Bluebird box view, Strasburg @2011

Bluebirds. Their call, even the word “bluebird” stirs memories of Dad tap-tap-tapping another nest box into existence. He created dozens and sold them or gave them away to anyone who had any interest and who had what he considered “good habitat”- open fields, fences and posts for vantage points, a few trees, but not too many. His farmer friends all had bluebird boxes by “Marty.”

And Mom was just as bluebird crazy as he was. Worm-averse though she was, - and thrifty too- she paid good money for dehydrated meal WORMS! (“For the bluebirds,” she would say softly, as if that explained everything.)

In my mind’s eye, somewhat misted by now, I can see my flannel shirted dad in the driveway in his bedroom slippers, whistling his own distinct call to let the bluebirds know he was putting worms in the feeder he’d built especially for that purpose. Soon, he could simply whistle, (I’ve always wondered if the birds knew it as the "plaid-man-call!") and a bluebird would fly to the tip of the garage roof and wait for dinner to be served. ​Good memories, bluebird memories.

That’s how I learned to recognize the sound of the bluebirds “grace notes” in my life:some teaching,and some practice with my in house “experts,”and a lot of listening.

What grace notes are you training your ears to hear in your life?

Beyond the birds, I mean. It’s important to become familiar with the Voice that you want to be attuned to hear. Many days, life seems to be one mundane task after the another. It’s dark on the porch, and most of us are carrying some garbage.

I don’t often catch a glimpse of the Presence…being invisible has its disadvantages for the rest of us. But I’m learning to listen, learning to recognize that Voice whispering in my ear, “This way. Not that way.” It’s not always a deeply spiritual revelation; that voice has spoken many practical words in my ear. Like yogurt, which you can read more about here. Or recently – "make chicken noodle soup."​Frequently the voice just says, “Wait.” Or “Pause.”

​Or even, just this morning, “Breathe.”

As with the bluebirds’ call, the more I’m learning to listen for the Voice, the more I hear.

It’s not that more is being said than before, it’s that I’m learning to pause in the noise of life and listen for those whispers.

And occasionally,when the sun rises full of promiseand my valley goes to pink-orange spectacular for a few minutes,if I’m in the right place,I see a silhouette,and I hear “tu-a-wee,”and every grace note is another reason for gratitude.

I've been thinking about this poem for awhile, since I first read it in Elizabeth Gouge's book, The Bird in the Tree. So, today I'm sharing it, along with some tree photos I've been taking for the past many years! I hope you find refreshment, encouragement, and the "yes" of life in the thoughts and images:

The Treeby Karle Wilson Baker

My life is a tree,

Yoke-fellow of the earth;Pledged,By roots too deep for remembrance,To stand hard against the storm,To fill my Place.​(But high in the branches of my green tree there is a wild bird singing:Wind-free are the wings of my bird: she hath built no mortal nest.)

​"The Tree" is reprinted from Blue Smoke. Karle Wilson Baker. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1919.Read more at http://www.poetry-archive.com/b/the_tree.html#rXjdZuqiIGja5ATG.99

My life is a tree,

Yoke-fellow of the earth;

Pledged, By roots too deep for remembrance,

To stand hard against the storm,

To fill my place.

But high in the branches of my green tree

there is a wild bird singing;

Wind-free are the wings of my bird:

she hath built no mortal nest.

For me, life is exactly this:putting down roots deep, deep, deep, that enable me to stand hard in the face of life's storms,roots that nourish and strengthen me to live through the capricious seasons of the soul,roots that help me remember who I am.

And also this: listening for the song of my own wild bird,following the slender, compelling melody of hope,giving her this wind swept branch from which to fling her eternal notes.

​

Think about your roots, your wild bird, and take tender care of both of them...

Author

I'm finding my way beyond the maze of the "middle" years (if I'm gonna be 100 and something someday...) ​living life as a country woman who is a writer, gardener, wife, mom, nature observer, teacher,and most of all a much loved child of God.